SpeakEasy Stage Company's current offering of The Wild Party
(with music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa) is the first production
of this work since its brief Broadway premiere production in the spring of 2000.
George C. Wolfe, who shares book-writer credit with LaChiusa, also
directed the original production. Based on the epic poem by Joseph Moncure March, it was one of two
Wild Parties produced that season. (The other by composer
Andrew Lippa had an equally short off-Broadway run.) March's work, a
1928 underground sensation despite its critical and literary rejection,
remained out if circulation and forgotten for decades. A 1994
reprinting with illustrations by Max Spiegelman gave the work new life.

Set in the fading New York vaudeville world of the twenties, the
poem depicts the tragic consequences of too much booze, drugs, sexual
rivalry and social experimentation. No surprise that more than one
composer would be attracted to this story which offers something of a
parable for our more recent periods of over indulgence.

The death of vaudeville, the growing sophistication of "downtown"
(the white establishment) and the social emergence of "uptown" (Harlem)
offer much potential for musical exploration. LaChiusa moves from
vaudeville pastiche to the emulation of Cole Porter and Duke Ellington
with equal ease, all the while making the sound and feel his own.

Bridget Beirne (Queenie) and Christopher Chew (Burrs)

March credited the cinema of his day, silent film, as his school for
storytelling. The pace and economy of that form are also hallmarks of
modern musical theatre production. Director Andrew Volkoff, with help
from set designer Susan Zeeman and lighting designer James Milkey, keeps
the action fluid as we move from a crumbling vaudeville stage to the
"studio-bedroom-bath-kitchenette" shared by Queenie (Bridget Beirne), a
vaudeville chorine, and her boyfriend Burrs (Christopher Chew), a
blackface comedian.

They decide to throw a party to make up for a hot summer afternoon of
fighting. As the evening's entertainments and entanglements progress,
the story careens from the upright piano to the Victrola, the make-shift
bar, the bed and even the bathtub, filled with the washed-up legend,
Dolores (Maureen Keiller), rather than the requisite gin.

Word gets out and "the old gang" of friends and rivals shows up in
force. The first guests through the door are the well-heeled bon vivant
Jackie (Kent French) and the stripper Madeline (Lisa Korak) dragging her
catatonic friend Sally (Rachel Peters) behind her.

Other fellow performers arrive: a former heavyweight champ (Phillip
Woods) now making the circuit with his ex-chorus girl wife (Jackie
Duffy) and her little sister Nadine (Bree Greig) in tow; the song and
dance team of the brothers D'Armano (James Jackson, Jr. and Brian
Robinson) and the aforementioned Dolores who enters with the warning:

Don't gimme no root beer
Cuz I need more than foam:
Don't give me no Jell-O
I'd rather die at home.

Into this dangerous mix come my two favorite guests, Gold and
Goldberg (Trevor Little and John Porcaro), a pair of would-be Broadway
producers invited by Burrs so he'll be included when they make the
hoped-for leap from the Bowery to Times Square.

The biggest surprise of the evening was Chew. While I found him to
be too soft as George in Sunday in the Park ... at the Lyric
Stage earlier this season, he's a dangerous and edgy Burrs in this
production. He musically nails both his opening "Al Jolson" vaudeville
turn and the unraveling of his state of mind at the end of the evening.

Beirne, however talented, is miscast as Queenie. Reminiscent of a
young Patricia Neal, a solid, earthy sort of woman, she's not convincing
as someone vulnerable enough about her looks and position to be made a
victim by more than one of her so-called friends and lovers, not to
mention her own appetite for trouble.

All the singers and the terrific small orchestra sound great because
of the intimacy of the space and the expert conducting and musical
direction of Paul S. Katz. With the exception of Sally's drugged out
passage "After Midnight Dies" which was unintelligible, the intricacies
of the piece come across.

Fortunately, LaChiusa's The Wild Party isn't banned in Boston
as the original poem was, nor has it been relegated to obscurity thanks
to the excellent Decca original cast recording. And based on this fine
production, it should have many more reincarnations in the regional
theatres and elsewhere and take its rightful place among the few great
works of contemporary musical theatre.

The Wild Party is presented by The SpeakEasy Stage Company at
the Boston Center for the Arts: BCA Theatre, 539 Tremont St., Boston
through February 23rd. Performance schedule: Wednesdays, Thursdays,
Fridays at 8PM; Saturdays at 5PM and 8:30PM; Sundays at 7PM. Box office
phone: 617 426-ARTS (2787).